It Didn't Use to Be this Way
by AshHavynn
Summary: OC story as well as looks into the lives of Seymour, Anima, and Jyscal.
1. Chapter 1: Denial

It Didn't Use to Be this Way

Chapter One: Denial

A/N: Another Mary-Sue Disclaimer. Avoid this fic if you dislike OC based stories, fan pairings, or magical powers given to original characters. Flames will be used to burn my homework with. Oh, entering scene is meant to be read darkly. Story is not chronological--it jumps around a lot.

It was foggy. At the same time, it was muggy and the air was thick and stagnant. There was so little wind that the heavy mist only crawled away, what left being replaced with more layers of fog, like a busy fork in the road trafficked by chocobo carriages. But there were no chocobo carriages, or roads with forks, or much of anything here. There were flowers, oh yes, in vases, and marble floors, and beautifully crafted gargoyles. High ceilings, double-doors, rugs worth a million gil in a thousand different colors. It was a mansion on the sea, neither drifting nor part of any island. The house, itself, was all there was, alone in the middle of the ocean, huge and hollow, and lonely, however intricate. No way in for 10 months of the year, when storms frequented the surrounding waters, and no way out unless you were rescued. In the case of Anima and Seymour Guado, there would be no rescuers, not in time, at least.

Seymour couldn't remember the outside world. He was born along the trip to Baaj, and never got to meet his to-be-established father, Jyscal. His mother always said nice things about Jyscal, but Seymour had a hard time believing them. Some days, he would be more questioning than usual, and Anima would be exhausted from trying to take the situation at hand and create for her son a child-friendly fantasy of it. It killed her to lie to him, but she was afraid he might not understand, that he might grow to hate the world if he knew the truth.

Some days, however, he wasn't questioning at all. In fact, sometimes Seymour liked to pretend that this little island was all there was to the world, and he and his mother were the only people in the whole, wide world. Truly it came that he relished this idea, and thought it acceptable to try to believe it. He stopped asking his mother questions-- questions about the Guado, and of his father, questions of the outside world. He still asked questions about Yevon before he went to sleep at night; he liked to learn about how his mother so put her faith into such things, but he thought that it was all some sort of game she'd made to play with him. As long as he had his mother, nothing else needed to matter.

Seymour loved his mommy very, very much.

"Mother, come and find me!"

"Goodness, Seymour, where can you be? Right in front of my face and I wouldn't know the difference; it's so foggy out here!" There was mild concern in her voice as she still tried to remain playful. "Do be careful, Seymour, I don't want you falling and getting hurt…"

"I won't get hurt, mother, now come, play with me!" Anima did as she was told, humoring the child, though as mothers do, she was confident in her ability to catch him by the sole sound of his voice.

This was all they did, or all they ever had to do. Living in exile with no connections to any other soul, you can live however you want, forever fighting away the loneliness and heartbreak-- if you can.

It was silent for a moment, save for the lapping of the ocean waves against the stone walkway. "Seymour?" No reply. "Seymour!?" Silence. She began to panic, but clung to the knowledge that had he fallen into the water, there would have been a splash, and hoped he was standing behind her, working her up so he could attack her with a bear hug from behind and scare her witless. But nothing ever happened as so. She began to look around feverishly until through the mist she could faintly see some sort of color. She approached it cautiously, the fog thinning only slightly as she tried to see what it was. When she was about 6 feet away, she could make out the figure of her son, standing near the edge, peering into the shallows. She sighed in relief. "Seymour, always answer me, my chi-" She froze momentarily. A second tiny form floated in the water, that was all she could see. A gasp and she sprinted to the edge, throwing her arms around the body and plucking them out of the sea. They were in a well built but now faded and worn raft. There was a portion of rotting food left in it, as well as a soaked cloth or two. The child she held was covered head to toe in thick, synthetic material in bright colors that can't be achieved by natural dyes. She wore goggles over her eyes, and had blonde hair.

"Oh, dear…" Anima felt the need to take her in from the elements immediately, seeing that she was breathing. After trying to wake her, her only response was a cough and a wheeze, both strong, a good sign in one way, but both signs of ill health all the same. "Seymour, let's go inside." Her voice was serious, her manner urgent. Seymour stared at the little Al Bhed girl with dark eyes, immediately angry at her for her crime of disrupting the reality he had created for himself.

Seymour didn't want to accept that there were other people in the world.

--

She stood on the bridge, hugging her cloak around her. Indecisive. It must be hard for everyone to take that first step into the farplane after…

Well, she had been lucky enough to walk into Guadosalam without being stopped and interrogated, but then again, tourists always visited the home of the Guado to see the farplane. And many had probably stood here exactly where she was, torn by the untamable desire to enter and the overpowering urge to leave. You just had to see it for yourself--but then again, if you never saw the proof, you could go on believing it wasn't really true.

--

"Wakka," a tenor, passive female voice. It was hesitant and thoughtful, and obviously troubled.

"Yeah, Lu?" The redhead sat down next to his wife on the bed, speaking quietly, and put an arm on her shoulder as she rocked their baby to sleep. He looked at her face with full attention, but she stared at the floor for a moment before lifting her head to meet his gaze.

"I'm worried about Yuna. She's been hiding something since we scheduled the wedding. I talked to Tidus this morning, and he said he'd thought the same thing. I'm sure you've noticed it, too?" Her words were spoken slowly, in no hurry, as if every syllable deserved to be spoken with full detail and attention. In opposition to sounding uneducated, as most slow speakers do, the black haired woman sounded all the more wise, as if she had to take the time to put her complicated thoughts into lame man's terms. Wakka kept a serious expression and his eyes fell to the floor for a moment as well.

"Yeah, she has been acting pretty funny lately. You talked to Rikku about it?"

"She was as puzzled as I was. I've even asked Yuna myself--so has Tidus. She tells us she's just nervous about the wedding. I suppose it could be one reason for her behavior, but she's never been a good liar. Something's wrong." The child in her arms groaned and whined, and Lulu held the baby all the more closer to her chest.

"Try not to worry too much, Lu. Yuna will tell us when she's ready. She always does."


	2. Chapter 2: Concern

Chapter Two: Concern

A/N: It's been so long since I wrote the first chapter that I can quite honestly say I don't remember what it is that Yuna's lying about. Guess this calls for writer's improvisation!

There were a surplus of empty guest rooms in the stone palace, all of which always went unused. In fact, Seymour much preferred to share his mother's room. Anima well knew that strong young men would sleep in their own beds apart from the warm, coddling embrace of their mothers, but she couldn't fight the fact that he was a deprived child anyway, and that somehow she'd be failing him to let him go with some want unmet. Besides, they were never going to escape this island, and Seymour wouldn't need to be strong. So she riddled herself with this controversy in her head, wanting to see the world through the innocent, naïve eyes of her baby boy instead of the worrisome, pessimistic eyes of her own. And so they lived on the island all alone together. She so wished that her son could have just one playmate--a friend, not just to lessen the workload of motherhood, but to help him socialize and break away from his infantile need of his mommy to hold his hand. He was 8 years old. She so dreamed of the strong, independent man he'd one day become if he just had company… To be wise and self sufficient like his father, always so charming and polite under all circumstances. Soft spoken, but with a will of steel. She prayed that one day he'd find himself a nice young woman to counsel with and care for, just like Anima had for Jyscal before it all went downhill that day. Such thoughts, she told herself, were so romantic and utterly farfetched in this cold, morbid, lonely world they lived in, but still-- they were such nice, glorious intuitions of hope…

She'd have gladly prayed to Sin than Yevon just to see them fulfilled.

…Perish the thought. They'd remain on this island until ultimately, one of them died, followed by the other by heartbreak and loneliness… (Anima secretly, for this reason, hoped Seymour died first--oh, dread the thought-- but it broke her heart to think of… what he might do to himself should she be the first to depart to the farplane.) The cute little visions of some spirited child arriving for playful afternoons with her son would never happen.

Or so the both of them would have thought.

Seymour stood outside the door, gazing in at his mother attentively wrapping the limp but breathing body of the little girl that had floated ashore. Tucking her in, checking her temperature, doing all things that she had been precision trained to do during the times Seymour had been sick when he was younger. Loneliness is a driving force behind not screwing up as a parent. He couldn't help but glare a little. After all, he had just recently come to rejoice in the idea that no one could ever take his mother away from him, and that they'd go on living together all along forever--much as a little boy would in his situation. And now, suddenly, there was someone else, and Anima had completely abandoned their game of hide-and-seek for this new stranger. He couldn't quite hate her however, because he'd only heard of other people existing in stories, and as much as he liked to believe that no one else existed, and there was nothing beyond the fog… Well, little children are just vast expanses of imagination, and the idea of something you've never seen before is always interesting and sparks the flame of adventure and exploration. Still, he was jealous.

"Mother," he asked loudly, then whispering after Anima hushed him.

"She's asleep, Seymour. Quiet," she said as she shut the door behind her.

"But mother, what IS she?"

"Not what is she," she replied again, "_Who_ is she." Seymour wasn't used to being corrected for his manners-- after all, to whom must he have had manners but his mother?

"Well, then, who is she?" They began to walk. Anima was intent on getting dinner ready so she could try to concoct some sort of medicine for the ailing body in the back room.

"She," she put emphasis on, "is an Al Bhed."

"An Al Bhed? Doesn't Yevon hate them? She looks so harmless and stupid." Anima rapped him on the wrist.

"Don't talk about other people like that, Seymour." It even felt strange for her to have to say that. She hadn't realized that she'd never taught him about respect to others before. A whole slew of social lessons he'd have to learn crash-course style. And she knew it'd be hard for him. He scowled at her reply. "Yevon doesn't hate them," she said with a sigh. "Simply, they break his laws. They use machina," she said like a teacher of sorts.

"Machina. You mean those mechanical weapons?"

"Not just weapons. Machina are things that we used to build before Sin was born. They did all of our work. They were bad, and we forgot how it was to take care of ourselves. Remember?"

Seymour looked pensive. "And then Sin came and destroyed all the machina, right?"

"Yes, but the Al Bhed still make them. We shouldn't be mean to them, though. And I really don't think that girl could have made any machina, she seems too young, and I'm sure--" Anima sort of began to blurt and speed her speech up, as if she thought she needed a hurried explanation to pacify any resentment her son might have had, but he interrupted her.

"Mother, why haven't we ever seen Sin before?" She stopped walking.

"I suppose… Because we're only us. Sin likes a lot of company, and there isn't anyone here gathered to attract Sin."

"Will that Al Bhed girl bring Sin with her?"

"Oh, heavens, Seymour. Enough questions for the night. Go along and get ready for supper."

"_I should certainly hope not…"_

--

She pulled her hood against her face. This was a stressful decision. Or, perhaps, on a different plane of importance, it wasn't at all. On a cosmic level, it was the difference between one tiny miniscule creature's taking 2 steps forward, 2 steps back, or none at all. Neither really affected where Spira would be 5 years from now. But on a personal level… It was the difference between ignorance and courage. Courage to face the facts and see for yourself what you really know to be true… Or ignorance to keep telling yourself that it couldn't be. Ignorance is bliss, right? Then again, just to see their face… even if it was just pyreflies responding to distant memories…

Maybe she should have gone to a site of a great killing… Or the moonflow. The pyreflies THERE could respond to distant memories. No, that's a complete cop-out. She had to do it. She had to. And ironically enough, the only thing that made her take that first step was the hope that maybe he wouldn't appear. Maybe none of them would.

So she walked into the farplane for the very first time. She was all alone; no one else was here at this time. She closed her eyes and held her breath and walked to the center of the platform where tourists are safely allowed. She squinted, exhaled, and forced her eyes to open. To her horror and dismay, each and every one of them appeared.

And he was standing. Right. In front of her.

--

Yuna walked out to the shore. The scenery in Besaid always made her feel so peaceful and welcome, and always filled her with memories of good friends and kindness. She'd made up her mind that the wedding HAD to be in Besaid temple, where she'd first become a summoner… the same temple she used to stare at every night and think about her father and his triumphs. Even though there was no more Fayth here, it still felt like Valefor was going to be there, a fast friend watching over her and her groom.

There was yet something sad and unsettling about this, however. She couldn't get that day in Bevelle out of her head. That kiss. That devious smile, the chilling words to defy everything she stood for. She'd searched for Tidus so long… She never gave up that he'd come back… And he did, though it is said that none return from the farplane.

In fact, she'd also been to the farplane herself, though not only in spirit, and seen before her very eyes proof that there are souls in there and not just fragmented pyreflies. She'd seen them, felt them, heard them speak and known it to be true.

She'd watched Jyscal try to escape. Certainly he wasn't a memory, but a soul with a purpose.

The scene haunted her. Was it possible? No. No, it was just a nightmare. She mustn't let such things bother her.


End file.
